Protect our Mexican market

Mr. Vilsack’s visit to Mexico last week shows how serious the US dairy industry is to the trade policies of the current Trump administration. Headed by Tom Vilsack, newly appointed CEO and president of the US dairy Export Council, US dairy leaders were in Mexico persuading the local dairy industry VIPs that the US keeps its “steadfast commitment,” even in a turmoil situation including fierce opposition from the people of Mexico against Mr. Trump.

Mexico is the single most important foreign market for the US dairy industry. Ever since NAFTA was in effect in 1994, the dairy export to the market became more than 4 times larger.

I write an analytic story on the topic to The Japan Agricultural News, and the story was carried in today's newspaper.

Here is what the US industry explains how important it is:

Mexico is our most important market and job creator.

Mexico is not only our neighbor to the south. It’s the largest importer of our dairy products, buying one-fourth of everything we exported. This means Mexican buyers support about 30,000 American jobs, primarily in rural America. It takes the equivalent of roughly 1,500 average-sized U.S. dairy farms to supply the volume of milk we ship to Mexico in the form of various dairy products—that’s a lot of farm families relying on the continued free flow of U.S. dairy products to Mexico. Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) became law in 1994, U.S. dairy exports to Mexico have increased from $250 million to $1.2 billion.

(http://blog.usdec.org/usdairyexporter/seven-timely-facts-to-share-about-us-dairy-exports-0)